The nine represent a class of an estimated 25,000 Eden clients and family members who collectively spent nearly $100 million for services over a quarter of a century, Avenatti said.

Many of the remains were placed in a section of the cemetery known as “the dump,” Avenatti alleged.

The 67-acre cemetery opened in 1954 and its assets were acquired in 1995 by SCI California Funeral Services Inc., co-defendants in the lawsuit with Service International Corp. Comedians Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce are among those buried there.

Defense attorney Steven Gurnee was scheduled to give his opening statement later this afternoon. However, he said during the lunch recess that the plaintiffs’ case is based largely on internal memos generated during a two- day training session for groundskeepers in October 2007.

In the memos, groundskeepers were critical of the burial practices at Eden Memorial Park and said they worried they would be fired if they complained.

However, Gurnee said many of those groundskeepers, as well as some cemetery officials, gave sworn testimony that sharply contradicts what is stated in the memos.

Avenatti said the class period extends from February 1985, when SCI acquired the cemetery, until the filing of the lawsuit in September 2009. The class members were induced to choose Eden Memorial Park instead of other burial grounds they would have selected had they known about the alleged misconduct there, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

The lawsuit alleges that SCI and its employees purposely desecrated hundreds of Jewish graves and improperly disposed of human remains and bones.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have estimated damages at more than $500 million.

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In July 2012, the state Supreme Court denied SCI’s attempt to have Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anthony Mohr’s class-certification order overturned.

The lawsuit alleges that groundskeepers were repeatedly instructed by cemetery management to secretly break outer burial containers with a backhoe and remove, dump and/or discard the human remains -- including human skulls -- in so-called “spoils piles” in order to make room for new burials.

New graves were then placed over the areas where the discarded remains were placed, Avenatti alleged.

All of the actions were done to increase profits, according to the lawsuit. SCI concealed the alleged wrongdoing by threatening employees and witnesses with retaliation and the loss of their jobs, according to the complaint.

Gurnee said the cemetery was damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and that the materials the plaintiffs’ attorneys claims are human remains are actually concrete and other debris, some of it from the nearby San Diego (405) Freeway.